RF cables and associated connectors are used for a variety of different applications including testing and data signal transmission. Such applications may require the connector to interface with circuit board signal traces and/or other mating connectors. Furthermore, various applications may include a high density of connectors at the connection plane for the electrical connections that must be made between, for example, electronic power supplies, sensors, activators, circuit boards, bus wiring, wiring harnesses, and other elements to provide the electrical pathways needed to transport electricity in the form of control signals and power signals. The signal integrity and reliability requirements for operating in certain environments and applications are stringent, and therefore, it is important to have superior ground and signal isolation. This is particularly so with high frequency RF applications. Also, such connectors and contacts therein must work in a wide frequency range and wide variety of environmental conditions such as mechanical, vibration, wide temperature ranges, etc.
While various solutions have been proposed, they are often complicated, require a large number or parts, and are thus expensive. Furthermore, certain solutions are limited in their application and how they might be packaged and so may only be able to mate with other connectors, or only within a circuit board scenario. As such, they are limited in the signal applications they can support and might be dedicated to only RF signal or only power signal application. Still further, existing solutions often cannot handle a wide tolerance variation at the signal mating interface.
Examples of contacts that implement compressible components also fall short as the spring components used for providing 360-degree grounding are often inconsistent. Those connectors that implement compressible or spring biased ground elements will incorporate the actual spring element into the ground path and therefore introduce impedance variations as the spring flexes. Other designs use compressible interposer components to address tolerance issues and have elastomeric layers with conductive elements therein. Such designs require significant clamping forces for proper usage and can still introduce inconsistency in the ground signal integrity.
Thus, it is desirable to provide an inline connector for RF signal handling that provides a consistent ground signal integrity as well as a 360-degree ground. It is further desirable to provide such a connector that is scalable and may be packaged and used for hybrid RF and power connectors. It is also desirable for a connector design that operated to support board to board, cable to board and cable to cable applications while handling and managing wide tolerance variations.